Ashes, Ashes
by QuantumInk
Summary: The team contract the plague.


**My first one-shot. Yay! Schools out! Sorry this story is kind of depressing. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice.**

**Rated T for death and violence and one cuss word. (Though mostly just death)**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

_Ring-a-round the rosie,_

_A pocket full of posies,_

_Ashes! Ashes!_

_We all fall down._

* * *

They have no idea it's there, until Wally dies.

They're in the kitchen chatting and eating as usual and he's shivering and coughing like he's about to hack up a lung. He takes a gasping breath and he rattles out another deep cough, covering it with his hands.

Robin looks at him with concern and he gives a small, shaky smile as if to say, _'it's alright, I'll be fine',_ but he looks down at his hand and there are splatters of blood on them and he's panicking now because, _this isn't supposed to happen_.

* * *

Robin is staring Wally, worried because speedsters don't usually get sick. He looks slightly red and pale, but Wally gives him a look like he says he's fine, but he can't help but worry. Then he can only watch as his friend's eyes roll back in his head and he collapses in a heap on the floor. He starts convulsing, freckled limbs spasming erraticly. He's twitching and thrashing and no one is quite sure what to do, but in less than a minute, it's over. Wally is a pale unmoving pile on the kitchen floor.

In a shaky breath, he tells someone to call the League and tell them what happened. He's by his friend's side frantically searching for a pulse, a sign of life, anything, but he just lies there motionless.

The others are frozen in shock, staring at Wally's lifeless _dead_ body, so drastically different from his usually energetic, _alive_ self.

Robin brings up the computer and calls the emergency number for Batman himself.

"Batman." He voice cracks. The others jump at the sound. "We have a problem. Kid Flash... he's dead." He has to choke the words out. Not really wanting to believe it just yet.

"Robin, I need details." He tells him, his tone commanding but calming.

"He was coughing. A lot. He fell, lost consciousness. Never woke back up."

There's a pause on the other end of the line and he can hear yelling in the background. And coughing.

"An alien virus. That's what we think it is. We believe Green Lantern brought an alien virus back to earth." Batman states.

"Huh?" He responds in surprise. "Didn't you ask him anything about it?"

"He's dead."

"Oh."

"I want you to run a blood test." Looks like it's back to business. "Run tests on everyone, find out what you can. Gather as much data as you can. I also want you all on lockdown. Make sure nothing gets in or out. We've already discovered the virus is deadly. I have a situation to deal with. I'll call you back in five hours."

* * *

He runs the tests.

He gathers all the data he can before sticking the needle in his own arm too, wincing. He always hated needles.

Five hours pass. No one calls.

"Robin to Watchtower. Robin to Batman. Are you there?"

No one answers.

* * *

They wait. The team waits for a message from the League, a sign that everything will be over soon that probably won't happen. But most of all, they wait in fear. Waiting for the next person to drop over, to die. They cover the body with a sheet and hope for the best.

He thinks, _why him? _ Is everyone he cares for destined to die?

* * *

A week later, they find M'gann. Her white Martian form sprawled across the kitchen floor. A tray of slightly burnt cookies strewn everywhere. Eyes closed, _dead_.

Artemis lets out a quiet gasp and a sob.

"I... I can't hear her heartbeat." Superboy murmurs. He then lets out a raw, angry shout, full of anguish. He drops to his knees, silent sobs wracking his body. He then storms away, letting out a wreckage of emotion on anything nearby.

All Robin feels is numb, the shapes blend together and become distant. Sound buzzes in his ear as his blood turns cold.

Kaldur placed a firm, reassuring hand on his shoulder, and if he tried, for a moment he could pretend it was Bruce.

* * *

He watches. Spends hours in front of the TV just staring at the news. He watches the number of bodies rise to the billions day by day. He watches the world fall to the virus and fear and hatred. He sees the government with their guns and armies that claim of peace, but they're just the beginning of a war.

Yet, none of them can stop it. They've tried different ways to get out, but nothing works _nothing will work_, the lockdown program is just too strong and it's so old, the controls break.

He can guess they mostly think about their families and their mentors and friends. They all worry, none of them have heard from them since.

He thinks about Alfred, the butler, no, friend and father figure to him and Bruce. The one who baked cookies that tasted like heaven in your mouth, spent time comforting him from nightmares at his early days at the manor, and each day waited for them to come home from patrol.

Though he knows somewhere in the back of his mind, there's a good chance they're all probably dead.

* * *

Superboy leaves. He's still angry and hurting and not sure how to deal with all of this at once. He jumps through the metal plating in a window high up in the training room.

No one has the strength or the will to go after him. They've already lost hope. He never comes back.

* * *

When he wakes up, his head spins in circles as he crawls his way out of bed and into the bathroom. He can feel his heart beat fast and unsteady against his chest. The floor is cold against his pale, clammy skin as he heaves into the toilet, and then there's the blood.

He sees specks of scarlet lining the porcelain, and that's when he _knows_. It's there in cold hard evidence that his days are numbered. He's going to be the next one to die, but there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

He hates it, feeling helpless. Robin is supposed to be a hero, supposed to save others, but he can't even save himself. As the world descends into chaos, he's just a small speck in the essence of things. He's_ so tired_ he thinks as the ground seems to spin out from underneath him and his head slams into the floor.

* * *

Groggy from sleep and sickness, he's a little surprised he wakes up _alive_ in his bed. He brings up the time on his computer, his head throbbing from the pulsating blue light. His eyes catch the date in the corner. Two days. He was asleep for _two days_.

He gets out of bed too quickly, loses his balance, and ends up groaning, flat on his back from his position on the floor. Getting up more carefully this time, he leans against the door, breathing heavily. It scares him, what he'll find when he opens it.

He does it anyway, throwing back the door and the strong stench of rotting flesh hits him head on. His heart stops in his chest and all he can think is_ they're dead. _Flashbacks from Gotham and the death of his parents come rushing back at him until voices from the next room over drag him back to reality.

"I do not believe that is the safest way to go about sealing the window."

"No shit Sherlock. Just it smells too bad outside to keep it open."

The breath he had been holding escapes him, and it feels as if a weight has been lifted his shoulders. He spots them, faces covered halfway with handkerchiefs, standing next to a rope under the broken window. Running into the room, he tackles his two remaining friends in a hug.

"You're alive!" He smiles and can feel his eyes start to water.

"So are you!" Artemis grins back.

"It is good to see you are doing better Robin. We were worried when we found you unconscious." Kaldur says.

"Yeah, don't do that you twerp." She punches him on the arm lightly. "Anyway, help us fix this gaping hole Boy Wonder."

Glad for the welcome distraction he replies,

"Sure."

* * *

He thought he was going to be the next to die. In fact he had been almost certain of it, but apparently he was wrong. _So wrong_.

Every part of him shakes while he crawls through the air vents in the mountain. The sound of gunshots and cracking flames and the bodies of Artemis and Kaldur hitting the floor still echo and vibrate in his head. He can still hear the military troops' footsteps marching through the hallways.

He can't think, can't breathe, but just keeps moving because that's all he can do. Tears stream silently down his face. He cries for his dead friends, all of them, and the family he'll never see again.

He chokes on the thick smoke in the air, and the fire makes the metal so hot it burns his hands. Another explosion rocks the foundation and the place glows a vibrant orange.

He kicks the grate off, jumps, and his feet hit the dirt. Pulling the thick jacket tighter around his green hoodie, he hooks the utility belt around his waist. He stumbles away from the mountain on shaky feet, tired and hungry, but he's _Dick Grayson, Robin_, a _survivor_, and somehow he's going to get through this.

The smoke billows up and the smell of ashes fill the surrounding air behind him, as he staggers away bleeding and so angry at the world, but alive.

* * *

** Thank you for reading!**

**If you don't get the nursery rhyme thing it's because the poem is supposedly a remembrance of the Black Plague (or just type in ring around the rosie on google)**

**I saw the Lego Movie, and I laughed so hard in the beginning. There was Batman in it, but yeah it was hilarious.**

**So now that summer has begun, I have more time to write and stuff.**

**So if people liked this I have an idea for a sequel or maybe a side story if anyone's curious about what happened at the Watchtower.**

**Or just review or something. Yeah reviews are nice**.


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